


A Debt Already Paid in Pain

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:39:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I lay in the gutter and counted to three hundred and fifty two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Debt Already Paid in Pain

Last night when we walked through the door, bloody and broken, you said I have to leave. You said that I was too hurt, I was too vulnerable when I’m around you. You blamed yourself and walked back out the door into the frozen night, one foot dragging gently and one black eye. I watched you shut the door softly behind you, the exhaustion having drained you of any fight you might have had left and I beat my head against the wall behind me, cursing as I added to the bruises on my skull. Then I turned and punched it, once, twice, scuffing the wallpaper that already bore the scars of us. Looking down at the broken skin on my knuckles I was reminded of the way you beat that man in the rain just to protect me, to turn his attention from me as I lay in the gutter and counted to three hundred and fifty two before unconsciousness claimed me. 

Somehow I found myself crouched on the floor with the wall to my back, and as I cradled my head on my knees I realised how little you knew for someone so incredibly intelligent. My limp fingers rasped against the floor and I remembered burying my face into your ridiculous coat as you carried me home. 

Why now? Why have you decided that after nine years, three months, fourteen days and eighteen hours, enough is enough? The minute I sat with you in the back of that cab and listened to you tell me everything I already knew about my sister, I had resigned myself to a life of bruises with you. Sometimes they angrily bloom in a spectrum of ugly colours and sometimes they sit just under the surface of my skin, but they always, always heal. I found myself listening to the mocking tick of the clock and I sat watching the floorboards, waiting for the familiar sound of your tread on the stairs. 

With you there’s always been injury and there always will be, but the inevitable collateral has never been enough to make me run from you, from this life we’ve built together. Perhaps you think I’m stupid. Perhaps you think that I’m still the broken soldier I was when you found me, addicted to danger and adrenaline, always itching for my next hit. Perhaps you think I rely on the bruises, on the broken bones; you think I need the damage to stay grounded, but after so much time, I’ve come to need you instead. We could stay locked in our flat for a hundred years and I’d never get bored of you insulting the television, but I don’t think you know that, do you? The clock chimed yet another hour and at some point my leg fell asleep, but I kept my head in my lap, my eyes pressed to my knees to stop anything unnecessary escaping. 

You’ve always had this unlikely element of insecurity, you’ve always been worried that I’ll be the one to leave you. Trust issues. We’re alike in more ways than you know. Is this you, ending the apparently imminent separation on your terms? I could never- I will never leave you willingly. Not again. At some point, the light of today started rising behind our drawn curtains and I ignored the distant glow with a strange impassivity. The blood had dried to my jeans and I could feel it crusted beside my mouth. I still can. 

Yes, running alongside you has given me my fair share of visits to A&E, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. There have always been wounds and they’ve always healed into scars that I treasure with fond memory. You’ve left your mark on me in more ways than one, and it’s probably not healthy but I don’t care. I don’t. Please, please stop blaming yourself because I would willingly follow you into hell with not a moment’s hesitation. I never heard your footsteps on the staircase and I never watched you walk back through that tired old door. I never felt your arms encircle me as you guided my aching limbs towards a warm bath and comfortable reassurance, and I never heard you whisper your apologies to my ear as I gladly fell into sleep. I sat on the dust covered floorboards in a forgotten corner of our living room and I listened to the clock on our mantelpiece tick by the hours incessantly until I stood and threw it against the wall. It shattered and all the intricate pieces that you could probably individually name ricocheted off everything. It should have been satisfying but all I could think about was how you used to religiously live by the hours it would chime, and how you won’t anymore.

All of the flesh wounds, all of the broken bones: They’re superficial, none of it matters. But this, this self-incrimination hurts so much more. You put me in danger and I’ll always love every second of it. 

So come back to me, Sherlock. I’ll mend. I always do.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Lord Byron's 'To Time', which I thought was rather fitting.


End file.
